Baseball

Pete Rose, Ken Griffey Jr. & More Former MLB Players Get Into NFTs

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) continue to see wider and wider adoption in the field of collectibles. After art and entertainment, athletes have been getting to NFT drops as well. A fresh announcement has been made by Photo File, Inc. about the release of officially licensed NFTs for some of Major League Baseball’s former players and stars. Pete Rose and Ken Griffey, Jr. are just two of the players.

The release is said to be the first in a series of releases with a world-renowned artist (Clark Mitchell) and the son of a Major League Baseball legend (George Scott III). Each limited edition series will feature varying compositions of each player and they will include animation and sound.

The prices are shown to start under $100 with each player having 4 editions release. There is the more common 1,000 edition, another 100 edition, a 1-of-10 and finally a 1-of-1 edition. The release also noted that the NFTs purchased with Ethereum (ETH) are available for purchase on the Opensea.io platform.

Photo File has been involved in sports photos and wall decor since 1987, with more than 2 million images. Don McCann, president of the company, said:

The Photo File brand has been synonymous with sports imagery since its founding in 1987. Historically, Photo File has enjoyed success selling photographic prints, frames and canvas. In the 21st Century, NFTs are the next logical platform for our content.

A license for this release of the Legends of Baseball Collection NFT by the following former MLB players:

  • Ken Griffey, Jr.,
  • Pete Rose,
  • Howard Johnson,
  • Kevin Mitchell,
  • Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd,
  • Lenny Dykstra,
  • George “Boomer” Scott,
  • and Lenny Harris.

The Ken Griffey, Jr. series will also include a 1-of-24 edition. The winning bidder for the exclusive 1-of-1 edition for each player will also receive a physical video frame which plays the animation on a constant loop that can be displayed like any other collectible.

As of the current time, the Clark Mitchell artwork 1-of-1 Pete Rose NFT showed a minimum bid and “reserve price not met” of 15.01 ETH (or about $48,269.31) with the sale ending on September 23, 2021 at 9:00pm EDT. This is of course the unique NFT (1/1) with none other, but it is on par or more than the high-end top 1960s rookie cards issued by Topps.

Based on everything that has been seen so far, it’s only a matter of time before every athlete and artist has their own NFTs for sale. Now we just have to see if the market can really absorb all these new launches.

Image below from Linktree.

Pete Rose NFT